Chris Paul’s retirement tour with the Los Angeles Clippers reached a strange and abrupt ending early Wednesday morning when the club released the Hall of Fame point guard. The 40-year-old Paul had announced that this would be his final NBA season in late Nov. during a trip to his home state of North Carolina, and now he won’t even get to finish out the season with the organization he helped legitimize earlier in his career.
Paul started all 82 games for the San Antonio Spurs last season, and signed with the Clippers this summer in a feel-good final act for the architect of Lob City in the early 2010s alongside Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. Paul figured to be a contributor on a deep Clippers bench for a team that seemed like a safe bet to make the playoffs again. Instead, the Clippers have crashed and burned in epic fashion, with a 5-16 record to start the year that is tied for the fifth-worst in the NBA.
Here’s the Clippers’ statement on releasing Paul:
Paul never really had a role on this year’s Clippers. He was averaging 2.9 points in under 15 minutes per game, turning into a DNP on most nights. There’s no shame in an all-time great like CP3 struggling to compete in his 40s, but the bizarre ending of his career will raise more questions about what really happened.
The Clippers owe their unprotected draft pick to the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder this year from the 2019 Paul George trade. It’s a disaster for the entire NBA, but especially an LA team that badly needs young talent.
There’s plenty of time to celebrate Paul’s greatness. He has a case as the best player in league history without a championship ring even if that distinction will likely remain Charles Barkley’s. CP3 is an 11-time All-NBA selection, a 7-time First-Team All-Defense selection (with two more Second-Team nods), a five-time NBA assist leader, and six-time steals leader. He did this despite generally being the smallest player on the floor in every game he played. Listed at 6’0, 175 pounds, Paul was something of an evil basketball genius who knew every trick in the book to compete with bigger, younger, and more athletic competitors.
We’ll update this story as it develops.
